It’s the process, not the outcome!

More and more voices are emerging on the Ayodhya verdict cautioning us against it and pointing out its flaws. After an initial period of uncertainty, caused by the unusualness of the judicial intervention, the lines are being drawn again. Respected voices from the secular side of the table are increasingly arguing against the court’s acceptance of faith as a legitimate ground upon which to base a decision on property rights. Some have argued that the verdict is a test case for the idea of India and its claims to being a democracy where every group’s interests are guaranteed protection, regardless of their size and importance. The Indian Muslim is hurt but gracious, some argue and the onus is on us to ensure that justice prevails.

It is true that a sensitive case like this becomes a litmus test for any democracy for it forces us to put our money where our mouth is. The demolition of the Babri Masjid was a blot on the idea of India as is the continuing inability of any government to take action against those who orchestrated it. But in this instance, the situation is quite different. A vexatious problem has gone to the court, where it has been given due consideration in the prescribed manner. After going through the due process, a verdict has emerged. No one has argued that the process was compromised in any way, or that the verdict came out under pressure from any side. And as is the right of the litigants, the verdict is being appealed in the Supreme Court.

The attempt to prise open the judgement and argue with its contents is fraught with troublesome consequences. It places the commentator above the law, and infects what is meant to be an impartial process with the contagion of doubt. Questioning the judgement and accusing it of pandering to majoritarian sentiment is to doubt the idea of the court itself. The judicial system is constructed so as to stand outside the pulls and pressures of politics and society; it is only then that it can provide the task of passing judgement on issues. It is interesting that before the judgement, everyone connected with the case promised to abide by the verdict, no matter what it was. The judicial process enjoys immunity from our suspicions about the other persons motives, and this immunity is important to preserve. Providing a super-judgement on top of the verdict is an invitation for every side to do so, in case the Supreme Court decision is not to their liking. Nothing can be more secular than the idea of the judiciary, particularly in a situation like this one where the problem cannot really be solved; it can at best be settled.

In any case, the key argument, that the court is confusing history with faith is also a dangerous one to make. Lets argue this the other way- is historical fact sufficient reason to grant rights to a particular community? If it were historically true that a religious structure of one community was destroyed and replaced with a structure of another faith, would it give the earlier structure an automatic right to exist today? Arguing for a historical basis to this decision is to open a giant can of worms, for where will we stop , how far will we go back and who will adjudicate as to what was a historical fact and what wasn’t? This argument is an open invitation to those who wish to rewrite history, using the ink of today’s power structure and creates an endless spiral of revisionism.

It has also been argued that there is pressure on the Indian Muslim to fall in line and to accept what in this view is a compromised solution. There is some truth to this, but it is troubling that after arguing passionately and quite correctly, that the Muslim is not a single entity when it comes to the challenging the spectre of Global Islamic militancy, how easily we revert to the One Muslim Voice stereotype in this case. Why should there be a unified Muslim reaction to the verdict? As regards the pressure to fall in line, it is true that the exhortation to ‘move on’ is often an expression of the facile reading of history by those privileged enough to be able to ignore it, but in a democracy, everyone has a right to express their opinion and in any case, in the larger scheme of things, this pressure is irrelevant. What matters is what the Supreme Court thinks.

In a case like this, the search for a technical version of justice is futile. It is important to acknowledge that there are two sides to this dispute and that any lasting solution must accommodate both. The details of what this nature of accommodation are, should not engage us too much as long as the process we follow is above reproach. The test of the idea of India is the guarantee that we provide on the process, not on the outcome. Let us pretend that the court is a black box from which a verdict will emerge, which we will embrace no matter what. If it gives something to both sides, then we cannot hope for anything more. If not, the grounds for rejecting the final verdict have already been laid. Today it is by one side, tomorrow it could be the other. And that is very bad news.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

Comments on this post are closed now

Author

Santosh Desai is a leading ad professional. He says he has strayed into writing entirely by accident, and for this he is "grateful". "City City Bang Bang" looks at contemporary Indian society from an everyday vantage point. It covers issues big and small, tends where possible to avoid judgmental positions, and tries instead to understand what makes things the way they are. The desire to look at things with innocent doubt helps in the emergence of fresh perspectives and hopefully, of clarity of a new kind.

Santosh Desai is a leading ad professional. He says he has strayed into writing entirely by accident, and for this he is "grateful". "City City Bang Bang" l. . .